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Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Here is another interesting episode of The Secular Buddhist podcast - this week's guest is Rick Heller, who is editor of the excellent online magazine, The New Humanism. This is an interesting discussion - secular Buddhist and secular humanism share a LOT of beliefs, with the only real difference being in the realm of personal practice (especially meditation, the Four Noble Truths and the Nobel Eightfold Path).

At the Secular Buddhist Association site, there are additional videos of Heller, links to his books, and other links of interest - go check it out.

Rick Heller

Rick Heller speaks with us about the intersection of Secular Humanism with mindfulness practice.

Hi, everyone. There’s been a great deal of discussion online recently about how Secular Humanism has very strong alignment with what we’re calling Secular Buddhism. We see very little difference in the ideological propositions about social interaction, and one of the few outlying differences seems to be in the realm of practice. That is, we agree that improving our interactions with others is a positive thing, but what can we do to get better at that on a personal level?

Fortunately, as both communities grow we are positively engaging on these kinds of questions, and finding Secular Humanists who have an active meditation practice as one feature of that personal transformation is not at all uncommon. And as we shall see in today’s discussion, some of those interactions have been supported by this podcast.

Rick Heller is the editor of the online magazine, The New Humanism, a publication of the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University. He is also a facilitator of the Humanist Mindfulness Group in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has guided mindfulness and loving-kindness meditations at Occupy Boston. He is the creator of Seeing the Roses, which offers free videos on mindfuless and shows how mindfulness can be an antidote to the excess consumerism that drives climate change. Rick’s writing has appeared in The Humanist, Tikkun, Free Inquiry, UUWorld, and Buddhadharma magazines, and in the Boston Globe and Lowell Sun. His short stories have appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine. Rick holds a Master in Public Policy degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School, a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University, and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering degree from MIT.

So, sit back, relax, and have a nice Dark Side Roast coffee. Come to the dark side. We have cookies!